Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A. 1998 Soft cover New No Flaws or Blemishes; Gift Quality---Myth and Archive presents a new theory of the origin and evolution of Latin American ...literature and the emergence of the modern novel. In this influential, award-winning exploration of Latin American writing from colonial times to the present, Roberto Gonz?lez Echevarr?a dispenses with traditional literary history to reveal the indebted relationship of the novel to legal, scientific, and anthropological discourses. ---This acclaimed book-originally published in 1990-will be of continuing interest to historians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and students of Latin American culture.Read moreShow Less

More About
This Textbook

Overview

Myth and Archive presents a new theory of the origin and evolution of Latin American literature and the emergence of the modern novel. In this influential, award-winning exploration of Latin American writing from colonial times to the present, Roberto González Echevarría dispenses with traditional literary history to reveal the indebted relationship of the novel to legal, scientific, and anthropological discourses.
Providing ways to link literary and nonliterary narratives, González Echevarría examines a variety of archival writings—from the chronicles of the discovery and conquest of the New World to scientific travel narratives and records of criminal confessions—and explores the relationship of these writings to novels by authors such as García Márquez, Borges, Barnet, Sarmiento, Carpentier, and Garcilaso de la Vega. Moving beyond demonstrating that early forms of creative narrative had their geneses in the sixteenth-century authoritative discourse of the Spanish Empire, González Echevarría shows how this same originating process has been repeated in other key moments in the history of the Latin American narrative. He shows how the discourse of scientific discovery was the model for much nineteenth-century literature, as well as how anthropological writings on the nature of language and myth have come to shape the ideology and form of literature in the twentieth century. This most recent form of Latin American narrative creates its own mythic form through an atavistic return to its legal origins—the archive.
This acclaimed book—originally published in 1990—will be of continuing interest to historians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and students of Latin American culture.

Related Subjects

Meet the Author

Roberto González Echevarría is Sterling Professor of Hispanic and Comparative Literature at Yale University. Myth and Archive is the winner of the 1992 Latin American Studies Association’s Bryce Wood Book Award and the 1991 Modern Language Association’s Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Preface;

1. A clearing in the jungle: from Santa Monica to Macondo;
2. The law of the letter: Garcilaso's Comentarios;
3. A lost world re-discovered: Sarmiento's Facundo and E. da Cunha's Os Sertoes;
4. The novel as myth and archive: ruins and relics of TIön; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Your Rating:

Your Recommendations:

Barnes & Noble.com Review Rules

Our reader reviews allow you to share your comments on titles you liked,
or didn't, with others. By submitting an online review, you are representing to
Barnes & Noble.com that all information contained in your review is original
and accurate in all respects, and that the submission of such content by you
and the posting of such content by Barnes & Noble.com does not and will not
violate the rights of any third party. Please follow the rules below to help
ensure that your review can be posted.

Reviews by Our Customers Under the Age of 13

We highly value and respect everyone's opinion concerning the titles we offer.
However, we cannot allow persons under the age of 13 to have accounts at BN.com or
to post customer reviews. Please see our Terms of Use for more details.

What to exclude from your review:

Please do not write about reviews, commentary, or information posted on the product page. If you see any errors in the
information on the product page, please send us an email.

Reminder:

- By submitting a review, you grant to Barnes & Noble.com and its
sublicensees the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use the
review in accordance with the Barnes & Noble.com Terms of Use.

- Barnes & Noble.com reserves the right not to post any review -- particularly
those that do not follow the terms and conditions of these Rules. Barnes & Noble.com
also reserves the right to remove any review at any time without notice.